Taken
by planet p
Summary: AU; sequel to What if. Major Charles is kidnapped by the Center, and Jarod returns to Moreland. Jarod/Miss Parker
1. Chapter 1

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Notes** A sequel to _What if_.

* * *

_1978_

If history had been different, if Robert had never come to them, had never come to live with them – and if Jarod had never left, had never found his family – she almost thought that life would have been perfect.

But history had taken Jarod from her, and had never returned him, but had overlooked Robert.

18-year-old Tully sprinted along the hot concrete footpath enclosing Moreland Swimming Pool's largest, bluest swimming pool, her closest friend, Sheree, quickening puffy-breathed at her bare-footed heels, the sound of Sheree's flip flops a loud and enraged ghost, and headed toward the stretch of green lawn where she could see her seven-year-old brother, Ethan, sitting with her mother, Catherine, and Timothy (or Timothy-Tomothy-Tamathy-Tumathy-Temethy, as Sheree sometimes called him).

The grass felt springy-spongy and cool beneath her hot feet, and she flopped down beside Ethan and tossed her head back, and to a side, and eyed him studiously.

Sheree, reaching the pair, flip flops now in hand, lowered herself to settle on Tully's other side, her left side, and lay back on the cool lawn and gazed – pupils small against the daylight – into the sky.

Tully sighed heavily – unfortunately – and glanced behind her, and was surprised to see her twin brother, Robert, whom she hadn't noticed – or cared to notice – before, and turned her head, long hair rustling, tickling the grass, and fixed her gaze with Sheree's, and rolled her eyes.

Sheree sat efficiently, and turned to glance behind her. "Hi, Marie!" she chimed, falsely friendly.

"You should wear sunblock," Robert told her in an emotionless voice.

Sheree mock laughed, airily. "The shit makes me look like the walking dead!" she replied, voice full of sarcasm and scathing anger. "And unlike some certain insane people, I'm not remotely interested in joining Club Marie!" She laughed again, gloatingly. "I'm sorry, that would be you – and your basket case split personality!"

Tully laughed loudly beside her, and watched Catherine and Timothy for a moment, walking across the lawn and toward the kiosk. Robert was a basket case! He wasn't even properly human! If he had been human, he would have had feelings! "What are you doing anyway?" she half-scowled, annoyed.

Robert glanced at her, his expression blank.

Tully shook her head and looked away from him and took hold of Ethan's little hand in her bigger hand. "Do you want to go play in the little pool?" she asked, in the special voice, reserved just for Ethan.

Robert stood up at the same time that she and Ethan got to their feet, and started coughing.

Sheree's hand flew to cover her mouth and nose. She didn't want to catch whatever he had!

Robert knelt down on the lawn, bent over, and continued coughing.

"Creep!" Sheree muttered, and followed Tully and Ethan, making their way toward the baby pool.

* * *

"TULLY!"

Tully heard Catherine's loud voice, strained, and turned to Sheree and passed her Ethan's sweaty hand, which she took, but made a face, and Tully stepped out of the shallow pool and walked back toward her mother. "WHAT?" she shouted.

Catherine made a face, and turned to glance at Robert, who was still coughing.

Tully marched over, and bent down and slapped him hard across the face – which stopped the coughing.

"Tully," Catherine half-gasped, half-admonished, "that is no way to treat your brother!"

Tully rolled her eyes. "It's a grab for attention, Momma! If you let him win, he's just going to do it over and over again!"

Catherine shot her a disagreeing frown.

Tully turned back to Robert and grabbed the front of his shirt. "ISN'T IT? HMM, IT'S JUST ANOTHER GAME!" She laughed, letting go of his shirt and placing her hands flat on his chest. "I'm so sick of your games!" she scowled angrily, and pushed him away from her with as much strength as she could muster, so that he lost his balance and fell back, onto the lawn.

"Tully!" she heard Catherine's hissing voice close to her ear, her hand gripping her arm tightly, so that it was painful, "What have I said?! What did I just say?!"

"I WISH YOU'D JUST SEND HIM BACK WHERE HE CAME FROM!" Tully exploded, turning swiftly to face her mother, face twisted in anger. "I DON'T WANT HIM ANYMORE! I'VE NEVER WANTED HIM! IT WAS ALWAYS YOU! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WANTED HIM! I WISH HE WAS DEAD!"

On the ground behind her, Robert started coughing again, and Timothy said, "Jarod's coming!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

* * *

**

Tully squeezed ketchup onto Ethan's sausage roll – from the kiosk – and pretended to ignore the squirming feeling in her stomach. Timothy had said Jarod was coming – her Jarod! – but she didn't care, of course. Jarod Who? Except she really did!

She wondered what he would look like. If he would remember her? If he did remember her, if it would be fondly? If he would still like her? If they'd be friends again? If she even wanted to be friends with him again? If it would be okay if she punched Kyle? She just felt like punching him, for no reason really, or maybe because she really wanted to punch Jarod – even though it wasn't really his fault for leaving, what choice had he had? And why shouldn't he have been allowed to have been happy, and with his family? She was so stupid – but if she punched Jarod she'd hurt him, and she didn't really want to hurt him, she was just mad at him… but she didn't really care so much about Kyle…

She watched Ethan eating his sausage roll, crumbs falling into his lap and onto the front of his tee shirt with the red sauce, and over his fingers and his face, on his chin and across his cheeks, and a little bit on his ear where he'd scratched it.

She didn't feel hungry herself, but she knew she should eat something, and she didn't really want to wait for it to go cold, because then she really wouldn't want to eat it, because cold meat pies just didn't taste any good, not even covered in ketchup.

Jarod would probably only remember her as being bossy, as being the boss's daughter, the daughter of the man who'd sanctioned (instigated, even) his and his brother's kidnappings from their family. He'd probably hate her!

She chewed on her pie and tried not to think about how much Jarod would probably hate her, and how tall he would probably be, and handsome…

She made a face, and directed her attention toward Robert, who was watching some teenaged girls in the pool laughing loudly.

"I dare dare you to ask the blonde one out!" she told him loudly.

He looked away from the pool and glanced at her.

"Dare you to ask the blonde one out!" she told him again.

"She doesn't like boys," Robert replied in a lowered voice.

"Eww!" Tully blinked quickly several times. She had so not needed to know that – ever! She took a breath and composed herself. "Liar! You're just making that up!"

Robert shrugged, and returned his attention to the pool.

"What are you," Tully continued, "scared of water? I never see you going in the pool."

"Yes," Robert replied, not looking away from the girls.

"What?" Tully asked, somewhat surprised that he'd responded to her question, or that he'd responded with such a wimpy answer.

"Since I was seven," Robert said, and frowned. "Since I was seven," he repeated, as though contesting with himself.

"What happened when you were seven?" Tully asked, not bothering to disguise her interest.

"Nothing," came Robert's reply.

Tully laughed. She so didn't believe that! "Like I care, anyway!" she told him. "You're a fat liar, Robert! You probably _did_ just make that up! So I'd talk to you, most likely. You're such a pathetic loser!"

"Bobby," Robert muttered quietly. "My mother called me Bobby."

Tully jumped to her feet and ran over to him and punched him hard in the arm. "Catherine is your mother," she hissed in an angry scowl, "not some whore bitch from Idaho!"

"Nebraska," Robert corrected, nonplussed.

Tully punched him in the arm again, remembering her mother's earlier reprimand and refraining from punching him in the face.

"I think she was lonely," Robert told her. "I think she didn't want to be alone anymore. Either that or she was tired, sick and tired, and fed up, and unwilling to sit idly by whilst history repeated itself."

"What are you talking about?" Tully growled.

"Nothing," Robert replied. "They took Jarod's father. Maybe they want him for something. Maybe not."

Tully stared, knelt on the lawn, and sat back on the grass. "What are you talking about?" she growled again.

"Mr. Charles. The Center took him."

Tully punched him in the arm, but not as hard as before, and leapt to her feet.

* * *

Catherine looked confused, as though she couldn't quite grasp what her daughter was telling her, or why, or, more importantly, how – and underneath the worry, she was scared, horribly scared. "Where does this come from?" she asked the only thing she probably could ask.

Tully made a face. "Robert told me. Do you think it could be true? Do you think Daddy really could have Jarod's father? Why?"

Catherine frowned, pained. "I don't know," she replied.

Beside her, Timothy frowned. "What about the angels?" he asked.

Both Tully and Catherine shot him absurd looks.

"Forget it," he intoned.

Tully made a face at him.

"I don't know why Robert would say something like that," Catherine told the two teenagers.

Tully watched Sheree chatting to a boy at the kiosk for a moment. "Maybe because he's mad!" she stated obviously.

"Robert isn't mad," Timothy said, "he's hard to read." He frowned in thought.

Tully stared at him in shock. Usually Timothy didn't talk much, and he certainly _never_ talked about his past, about his _abilities_, when he'd been at the Center, or anything related to it – not that she could blame him, she knew the Center had taken him away from his family without his or their permission, and that they'd made him do things he hadn't wanted to do, and they'd hurt him, and hurt people he'd cared about. And two times in one day was just too much, she started to think maybe he was ill, or dying, and became irrationally scared, in a small, dark place at the bottom of her stomach, which started to hurt. And all that talk of angels? What was that about?

"Timmy?" Catherine questioned, using they'd used when he'd been younger.

Timothy looked at her suddenly, breaking from his thoughts, and made a face, as though considering his options, neither of which he much liked. He didn't like talking about the Center, or anything related to the Center or its operations, as both Tully and Catherine knew. It meant reliving old memories. "I suppose he could be receptive to certain… vibrations, energies. He might have… intercepted… inadvertently… some sort of connection, or pathway, or binding…" he shook his head, "something, within the background energy. Or he might be an Empath… like me…" he finished in a dull, quietened voice. He rubbed his face irritably with one hand and let his eyes refocus and watched Sheree chatting away to the boy at the kiosk for a moment.

Tully looked away from Timothy to see Robert suddenly standing beside their mother, which startled her a little, because she'd been paying so much attention Timothy to hear him sneak up on them. In all honesty, he could have been anyone – and they didn't want just anyone listening in on their conversations! "The little girl is sick," he said. "I don't want them to come."

Catherine frowned. "Emily is sick?" she asked.

Tully thought she vaguely remembered the name, though she couldn't be sure. Emily was Jarod's little sister, she supposed. Of course, she did not believe a word Robert was saying. He was a nasty, rotten, fat liar – from beginning to end! All that crap about being afraid of water! What a load of lies!

Robert nodded.

"Perhaps we can help her?" Catherine said, pushing aside the awkwardness, or ridiculousness at this sort of thing coming from her son, least of all, and not Timothy. She knew, certainly, that she'd be able to direct them to where help was available, a hospital, or a clinic.

Robert made a face. He didn't think so.

Tully gaped, momentarily abandoning her silent tirade at how much of a liar Robert really was, even if she was the only one who could truly see it. A real human emotion! It would be pretty stupid – and it was pretty inconsequential given the circumstances – but she wanted to faint, if only out of principle!

"But if nobody can, she'll die, and…" He looked at the ground, at the neat, green lawn. "I don't like when that happens."

"Well, are you?" Tully demanded, as though he'd been listening into their conversation and following it all along, though she knew he can't have been, he'd been sitting too far away, and they'd been talking too quietly. The subject matter of their conversation wasn't something they liked to really advertise! "Are you an Em-thing?"

"Empath," Timothy supplied.

"It sounds like a psychopath!" Tully added, still glaring at her twin brother.

"Maybe," Robert replied, nonchalant.

Tully laughed in his face.

Robert started coughing.

Timothy made a face. "You have to separate it in your mind," he said distantly. "It's real, but it isn't yours, it isn't happening to you. Y-you have to separate it. You can't let it control you."

Robert collapsed and fell to the ground in front of Tully, who made a face and moved back hastily.

"I don't like this," Timothy moaned, suddenly eleven years old again, and very scared, and very confused. "This is very bad."

"Yes, I think you're probably right," Catherine agreed.

On the ground, Robert started convulsing.

_A fit_, Tully thought, as she stared.

Sheree shrieked, and laughed. "Oh my God! I think he's possessed, Mrs. Hamilton!"

Catherine glanced at her, stricken, as though thinking that maybe Sheree would know what to do.

Tully reached out a hand slowly and touched her brother's face with a finger. The convulsing stopped. She scooted backwards again. "Oops! I didn't mean that!"

Sheree glanced at her. It wasn't as though he was dead – really!

Robert sat up and started crying, which, Tully thought, was a really wimpy thing to do, and even lower on her scale of things she did not appreciate than making up lies to win sympathy or respect.

"What's wrong?" came little Ethan's voice, and Tully suddenly saw that he'd finished his sausage roll and his fruit drink, and that he'd come over to see what was happening. She leapt forward and wrapped her arms around him from behind.

Robert stopped crying and rocking and looked at him suddenly. "I'm okay!" he said suddenly, brightly, and smiled.

Tully stared at him as though he was mad, but Ethan smiled. If that hadn't just confirmed that he was a big fat fake, she didn't know what would! Human emotions, yeah right!

"You should get a priest," Sheree said.

Tully shook her head, ignoring her friend's comment. She didn't know why her twin was like that – like Timothy? – and she wasn't, but she knew it scared her. Beyond all of the maddening lies, something told her that something was badly, scarily wrong!

* * *

Tully sat and thought about what her brother had said, that he didn't like the feeling of people dying – as though he'd been around so many people who'd died! She wanted to slap him and ask if he'd ever killed anyone, or if his psychopath fake dad had, but she didn't.

She was waiting for Jarod, now watching Ethan eating a popsicle, and the rest of it melt all over his hands, and eating her own popsicle.

She held the popsicle out to Robert. "I'm not like you, am I?" she said quietly. Catherine was not far away, talking on a public telephone from out of a phone booth.

"No," Robert agreed quietly. She wasn't like him.

Tully scuffed the bottoms of her bare heels on the concrete footpath, swapping her weight from foot to foot. The concrete was hot. "Do you want some of my popsicle, or not?" she asked, aggravated.

"Not."

She made a face. "Well I don't want the stupid thing!"

Robert took the popsicle from her disdainfully.

"Yeah, you're really gonna die!" Tully said, and went back to watching their mother talking on the telephone. "Who is she even talking to anyway?"

"Sydney," Robert said, though she'd really only been thinking out loud.

Tully glanced at him. "What? From… the C place?"

"From the Center, yes," Robert replied.

"Shut up!" Tully growled. "You were never there! You don't know what it was like!"

"Granted."

"You're an idiot!"

Robert shrugged. "It's not like I want her to die, but that is what it feels like. It feels like she's getting ready to leave, like it's just the waiting now, like she's just waiting, not really fighting."

Tully stared at him. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.

"That little girl," Robert replied. "Emily."

Tully glared.

"She doesn't believe she's gonna get better."

"Why shouldn't she?" Tully scowled. "She's a kid."

Robert frowned, pained.

"Well, I don't care, whatever," Tully told him, annoyed, "I don't want to know if Jarod's sister is going to die! Just don't tell me!"

Robert sighed and walked up to Ethan and Tully watched the pair walk to the rubbish bin in front of the convenience store where they'd gotten the popsicles and drop their ice-cream sticks into the bin.

She wondered if Catherine was really talking to Sydney. She didn't know if that was so smart, if Sydney could really be trusted, or if it was an altogether good idea to imperil him that way if he could be trusted, if they ever needed him in the future. She wondered if her mom was asking about Jarod's dad, Mr. Charles.

"She wants to know what they gave the little girl," Robert told her, walking back over. "What they gave her to make her as sick as she is."

Tully glanced at Ethan, playing with the small plastic moon buggy Robert had obviously bought him from the convenience store.

Timothy sat up straighter on the bench in front of the convenience store, in front of the bus stop, and stood up and walked over. "What did you just say?" he asked.

"Mother," Robert replied. "She is asking Sydney what the C- What the little girl was given to make her ill, what they gave her?"

"The Center?" Timothy asked.

"Yes."

Timothy made a face. "Well, did they? Was it them? Is that why she's sick, because they gave her something?"

Robert frowned, mock sad. "No."

Timothy scowled. "How do you know?"

Robert smiled.

"How do you know?" Timothy demanded.

"I'm not sure it's something that would be in my best interests to disclose at this point," Robert merely replied, as though they'd been talking about nothing more important than the activities of the local bingo club.

Timothy glared. "What does that mean?"

Tully ran her hands through her hair and turned on the spot. "To be honest, I couldn't care less what it means! Why did they take Mr. Charles?"

Robert frowned, redirecting his attention toward his sister. "I don't know."

She stared at him. "But you know that stuff about the little girl!"

He smiled. "We seem to have a connection," he told her.

Tully scoffed, wanting to slap him, but deciding that she'd probably done enough pushing and punching for one day. "You're mad, do you know that?"

"I'm well aware of my mental status, yes."

She laughed. "Stuff you! And what about Mr. Charles, how do you even know he's not dead?"

"I don't."

Tully choked.

Robert shrugged. "They're here now," he said.

* * *

Tully watched the car pull up, and her mother replace the telephone receiver in its cradle and step out of the telephone booth, and Tully quickly bent down to take Ethan's hand, so that he straightened and turned his attention to the car as well – moony buggy clutched tightly in his little hand – and they both watched Timothy stride away from them to join Catherine.

"He has what Jarod and Timmy and Kyle have," a voice whispered in her ear quickly, "what makes them special. Mr. Charles. That's why they took him."

Tully suppressed the half-sarcastic laugh, half-growl that had welled up in her throat at the hushed around of her brother's voice, and said nothing, but watched, and waited. Waited for Jarod to step out of the car, or his mother. Wondered if she would recognise Jarod at all.

"He's far too important to kill him just like that," Robert continued. "I can't be sure, of course, but I'd say he wasn't seriously hurt when they took him. Certainly, the little girl doesn't feel as though she's going to be… she feels as though, when she goes, she's going to go alone, and she's frightened, but she can't stop it from happening, not anymore, it's been too long, but she's not going to meet him there… From what I can tell from the little girl, he's not dead… at least, she doesn't think he is… he's going to come back one day, but by then she'll be gone… and she's sad, she wants to say something, she wants to be able to tell him, to make him understand why she had to go, why she couldn't stay… but you know what – she's just a kid-"

Tully couldn't take it anymore! She turned her head and glared hatefully at her brother. "Shut up!" she growled, fighting painfully to keep from shouting at the top of her lungs, from drawing attention to the two of them, to keep from releasing Ethan's hand – just for a moment – to punch Robert.

"It'll be alright," Robert assured her, and, just for a moment, he held her gaze, and then his eyes were far away again.

Seething, Tully turned back to see a redheaded woman standing by the car, talking with her mother, and remembered – clearly, now – a name, a name from a very long time ago, it seemed to her now. Margaret. Jarod's mother.

She looked down momentarily, and saw that Ethan was smiling, that he was very happy, as though he'd sensed that there was another child about, another child whom he might make friends with, and whom he might play with his moon buggy with – but Emily was too sick to play moon buggies, and Tully's chest suddenly hurt. Poor little Ethan!

Without turning, with her free hand, she took hold of her brother's hand, far too tightly. "Promise it!" she growled. "Promise that that little girl's not going anywhere!"

"I can't do that, Tully," Robert told her – and she wanted to kill him then, just for daring to call her by _her name_, or for using that patronising tone of voice on her!

"Promise it, psychopath!" she growled.

"She's not going anywhere, I promise," Robert finally replied.

"Promise that she's going to get better!"

"She's going to get better, I promise," he promised, but this time his voice was hollow, but Tully didn't look around – she wouldn't give him the satisfaction – and released his hand, glad that she did not to have to touch him any longer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

* * *

**

"Hello, Tully."

Tully blinked suddenly, blushing in spite of herself, and realised that she really couldn't see that well, her eyes were too foggy, her vision blurry and smeared with tears, and she blinked harder, silently cursing herself for not paying attention, and for allowing her eyes to tear up, and then the tears were running down her face, and she wanted to run away, but she was holding Ethan's hand, and his legs were small and he couldn't run so well – at least, not as well as her, though he could usually be found running everywhere and exactly when he was not meant to be – and there was Jarod.

She blinked again, but did not brush the tears away, far too afraid that this would draw Jarod's attention to them, or that she'd look like a total prude who was scared to show her emotions, and was somewhat – or a lot – arrested by the sight of Jarod standing before her. "Hello," she managed to say, as though she'd completely forgotten his name, or he was a total stranger, and, as she thought on it, she thought her voice had sounded much more like a squawk – oh God, she'd sounded like a bird without a head – than what she'd been aiming for, a casual kind of something.

She blushed harder.

When she stopped worrying about what she'd sounded like, she realised that Jarod _was_ cute! And she really did want to run away!

"Hello," she heard Jarod say, considerably less friendly, and much less awkwardly, to someone beside her, or maybe it was to someone behind her – and then she realised, turning abruptly, that it was probably to her brother!

Robert did not reply, he was staring, instead, at the concrete, frowning studiously.

"Your boyfriend's real friendly!" Jarod growled.

Tully spluttered, nearly letting go of Ethan's hand in shock. Her free hand flew up to rest on Jarod's chest, assuaging, but she quickly removed it, realising that they were no longer children, and that such as gesture would likely have taken on a very different meaning now. "Jarod, it's Robert!" she choked. "Robert – my _bro-ther_!"

Jarod frowned heavily and glanced at her seriously.

She nodded furiously, feeling her face ever reddening.

"Oh," Jarod replied, seeming to accept her words. "Yeh, oops!"

Tully laughed shortly, a little too breathlessly.

Robert looked up suddenly.

"Robert!" Jarod intoned.

"I'm sorry about your father," Robert told him. "He's alright, though. Sydney said he's alright."

All this was news to Tully – false news, she highly suspected – though she had little time to contemplate the validity of this new piece of information, as Jarod had just punched Robert – something she'd been wanting to do herself almost all day – and she hurriedly dropped Ethan's hand, against her better judgement, and her own will, it seemed to her, to stop Jarod from continuing to punch her brother, though she felt that he fairly deserved it.

* * *

The two families took separate cars to the hospital, though Tully could tell that Catherine was much happier than she'd been in a long time to see Margaret again.

The trip was for two reasons: one – the obvious one – was Emily's illness, and the other, Robert's concussion.

Tully, herself, wasn't so fussed for her brother, and he seemed fine beside.

They were instructed, at reception, to take seats and wait in queue along with the rest of the people already waiting for medical attention.

Tully wanted to ask Jarod what was wrong with Emily, but it was enough that she was sitting _beside_ him.

She glanced around her and saw that Robert, despite his concussion, was smiling, and suddenly, unsettled, she wanted to take Jarod's hand up in her own.

Robert closed his eyes for a moment, thinking, Tully supposed, but then, she realised, that he'd been listening to the radio, because a moment later, he started to sing along to Bing Crosby's _My Heart Is Taking Lessons_, and opened his eyes again.

Tully watched him for a moment, and then she realised that Emily and Ethan were also watching him.

Robert bit his lip and smiled. "Is that your favourite song?" he asked, never taking his eyes from the little girl.

Emily made a face.

Robert grinned and shook his head, and glanced at Ethan. "Is it yours?" he asked.

Ethan shook his head.

Robert smiled and frowned for a moment, as though in thought, and began to sing Jim Reeves' _Distant Drums_.

"Do you only know old songs?" Emily asked in a quiet voice.

"What's not an old song?" Robert asked, smiling at her.

Emily leant forward, and Robert bit his lip, and she whispered a song to him.

Robert smiled. "Do I know that one? I think I might."

"Did you really think Robert was my boyfriend?" Tully asked suddenly, turning her attention back to Jarod.

Jarod frowned, glancing at her. "Yeh," he replied.

Tully frowned. "Have you had a girlfriend before?"

"I've had girlfriends before, yes," Jarod told her, conversationally.

"More than one!" Tully exclaimed, and then dropped her gaze to her lap, embarrassed.

"Five," Jarod responded. "Don't tell me you've never had a boyfriend before!" He laughed lightly.

Tully opened her mouth, but didn't lift her face from her legs, too embarrassed to meet his eye. "No," she confided, honestly.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jarod shrug one shoulder, nonchalant.

"D-do you have a girlfriend now?" Tully stammered, and felt her face flame.

"Nah."

"Oh." Tully stared hard at her legs. "Have you, you know, kissed and stuff?" she asked hesitantly, but unable to stop herself from speaking, though she wanted very much to just clamp a hand over her mouth, but her arms weren't working the way they were supposed to.

"Yeh, I mean, it's not like I'm a kid," Jarod told her, making her feel exactly like she _was_.

She wanted to stand up and run away, just get away, but, by now, not even her legs were working, so she just responded as she had before, with an awkward, "Oh."

They stopped talking after that, and Tully resigned to staring at Kyle, who was sitting in the row of seats in front of her, beside Emily.

"Will you hold my hand?" Emily asked Robert suddenly, and Tully watched the smile fade from her brother's face.

"Oh, darling," he said, "of course I can hold your hand!" and then he stood up and stepped closer and knelt down on the floor in front of her chair and held her hand.

Kyle, watching all this, rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

Robert leant forward and whispered something to Emily which Tully didn't quite catch, and Emily frowned, and then glanced past Robert to where Ethan was sitting, and fixed her gaze on his face. "Do you want to hold my other hand?" she asked, and Ethan immediately slipped off the chair and hurried forward to take Emily's other hand, with which she patted the empty chair on her other side, indicating that he could sit beside her, which he did.

"Listen to me, sweetheart," Robert said, and Emily glanced at him, "you've got your whole life ahead of you! You have so much ahead of you! You've just got to fight, and, oh, is it worth fighting for! But, by goodness, fight! You have to fight, sweetheart!" He shook his head. "Someday, sweetheart, some boy will break your heart, but you know what, sweetheart? Even that you wouldn't want to miss for the world! And just you go and break his heart right back! And then, one day, it'll be time to leave, and it'll probably break your heart all over again. But that time isn't now! Right now, you've barely just begun to live! So fight, sweetheart, fight! You have your entire future to fight for, all of our futures, because, darling, you, and Ethan," he glanced here at Ethan, sitting beside Emily, "you are the future!"

Jarod snorted in amusement and sarcasm.

"That was very flattering, and very noble," Emily replied, blushing, "but I think I'll give the good fight a rest for one night."

Jarod started to clap, and Tully dropped her gaze, once more, to her lap.

Robert laughed and patted Emily's nose with a finger. "You are a much amusing little girl!" he told her.

"How old are you?" Emily asked seriously.

"Eighteen," Robert replied.

"You're not a baby, darling," Emily told him. "People die, sweetheart. Everyday. Wake up, look around you, look at all of the people dying."

Robert put a hand over his mouth and shook his head.

Beside Emily, Ethan frowned.

Robert stood swiftly and, whispering a decisive, "Let go!" snatched Ethan up from the chair and held him close to him.

"I am inconsolable to the lies of grown-ups!" Emily told Robert, with an amount of gusto that was clearly painful to her, but Robert only turned on the spot and strode away. "I'm dying!" she shouted after him. "At least I'm realistic about it!"

Kyle turned and reached out hands to calm her, to stop her from shouting, from weakening herself further, but Emily just glared after Robert through her horrible hacking coughs, which had Jarod leaping from his seat, and Margaret turning from her conversation with Catherine, with Timothy passively listening in, and rushing to be with her children.

Tully felt suddenly alone, and cheated, and she hated Robert so much at that moment, and stood rapidly and stalked after her twin brother to retrieve her younger brother, who she found happily eating a chocolate bar whilst Robert cried. "I can't stay here!" he told her, stricken, as she approached. "It's disgusting!" He hugged Ethan a moment longer, and then replaced him on his feet, and turned and ran out of the waiting room.

Tully stared after him hatefully and snatched the chocolate bar off Ethan. "You shouldn't be eating that!" she snapped at him, but took a bite out of it, and passed it back before he burst into tears, and knelt down in front of him and hugged him tightly to her.

Tully, holding Ethan's hand, turned back to that other family, and watched Jarod angrily saying all manner of things about her brother, all of which were perfectly true, Tully knew.

* * *

Catherine eventually left Margaret, Timothy trailing behind her, and frowned at the almost now entirely eaten chocolate bar in Ethan's hand.

Tully wordlessly surrendered her little brother and walked away to find Robert.

* * *

When Robert saw her, alerted by her loud footsteps, he began laughing. "I'm mad, Tuls," he told her amusedly, and coughed a bit, through the laughter. He turned on the spot. "That's why, given the circumstances, I think it would be best if we no longer associated, Tuls baby." He coughed again and flung out an arm and pointed at her. "No closer, Tuls, treasure!"

Tully stopped dead and crossed her arms, fixing her face with a glare. She wasn't scared by him! And she certainly wasn't intimidated by him, or all of the stupid, fake, cute nicknames!

He laughed and put on a childish voice, "You're my sister so I love you. Me and you, we're a family, see. And you love your family best. And I do. I love you more." He laughed hysterically.

"You need help!" Tully told him in a clear, no-nonsense voice.

Robert giggled and lurched forward. "You are my help," he told her, and she backed sharply away from him, almost stumbling as she backed away, and straight into someone.

Whoever she'd backed into didn't shout, but brought their hands up to rest on her upper arms to steady her, and she realised, with a pang, that it was Jarod!

Robert laughed and thrust his hands out in front of him, palms out as though in surrender, and turned too quickly and stumbled away, and out of sight.

"Are you okay?" Jarod asked, from behind Tully, and she turned so that she could see him, so that she could see his face, and nodded.

"He's my brother," she told Jarod, "he wouldn't hurt me." She didn't believe this, not for a minute, but she didn't feel as though it would be the right thing to tell Jarod this. Now, more than ever, she realised, she needed to stick with her own clan, with her own family. At least until she could get way, and start anew!

"I wouldn't be so sure," Jarod replied seriously.

Tully stepped out of his arms and turned away, jerkily, and wandered after her brother, or in the general direction she'd seen him go.

This time, Jarod did not follow.

Tully wanted to cry.

* * *

"Look what you made me do!" Tully screamed, when she found Robert, sitting alone at a table by a window in a diner, and realised that Robert couldn't very well _look_ what he'd made her do, and that _she_ was the one who looked mad right now, to all of the unassuming people sharing the diner with them.

She fell into a chair opposite him, and kicked him under the table. "What's happening with you?" she asked him, wiping her nose on a serviette from the serviette holder in the centre of the table.

Robert folded his arms on the tabletop and rested his head carelessly on his arms.

Tully sniffed and played with a lock of his hair. "You wouldn't hurt me, would you, Bobby?" she asked, voice plain.

Robert laughed, but the sound was muffled by his arms, and the tabletop.

Tully said nothing, but continued playing with his hair. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

"Guess!" Robert replied, voice muffled and sarcastic.

Again, Tully did not reply.

"She thinks it's her fault," Robert said, after a while.

Tully stopped playing with his hair. "That's stupid!" she replied, supposing that he meant that Emily thought that it was her fault that the Center had taken her father, because she'd gotten sick and she'd needed to go to hospital. She moved in closer to the table on her seat and reached an arm out across the tabletop and pushed her brother in the shoulder. "I'm hungry," she told him, "buy me something. I know you have money, you bought Ethan that toy at that store."

Robert sat up after a moment, and looked at her. "What would you like?"

"Guess," she told him.

He rolled his eyes and stood up and walked away to the counter, but had to stop for a moment to cough.

Tully supposed Timothy would know that they were alright and tell Catherine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

* * *

**

That week wasn't a good week for Tully, or, as it turned out, for anyone. Emily's condition was rapidly deteriorating, and there was no word back on Mr. Charles from Sydney. Meanwhile, Catherine had decided to take Tully, Timothy, Robert and Ethan shopping for clothes for the funeral, which she, along with everyone, it seemed, including the doctors, were preparing for Emily's inevitable departure from this life, and into the next, at least, that was what Catherine maintained.

And, in the midst of all this, was Sheree. One day, all excited about the boy she'd met at the swimming pool kiosk. The next day, confined to hospital, like Emily, with rumours abounding that she'd been attacked, and maybe more.

When Sheree didn't turn up for school that first day, Tully began to worry that maybe she was ill. Sheree, after all, though she protested adamantly and often that she detested school, had never missed a day all year. Tully snuck out of the school grounds over the lunch hour to use the telephone booth down the road, and was informed by Sheree's mother that she was in hospital. Tully couldn't even think about eating lunch after that. She didn't think she could handle if Sheree died as well as Emily, though, when she returned to school she noticed a police car sitting in the school's parking lot out front of Reception.

Sheree's uncle was a police officer, Tully knew, but as she passed Reception on her way to class, and saw the look on Sheree's uncle's face, her newfound resolve to enquire after Sheree's health all but fled her, and she lowered her head and followed her classmates along the corridor and into the classroom without a single word uttered.

After school, she immediately conveyed the news to Catherine, who agreed that they should, if allowed, visit Sheree in the hospital, so Catherine rang a sitter for Ethan, something she rarely, if at all, did, and she, Tully, Timothy and Robert rode over to hospital in the car, Timothy, who'd recently obtained his Learner's Permit, driving.

Tully didn't have to take much more than one look at Sheree, before fleeing for the bathroom, where she promptly emptied her breakfast, along with the entire contents of her stomach, though this wasn't much more than her breakfast, as she hadn't eaten lunch, and hadn't snacked, or eaten anything when she'd gotten home from school.

Ten minutes later, she went in to see Sheree and sat beside the hospital bed she lay in and held her hand and told her about how her mother had taken them all shopping for dark clothes, funeral clothes, and Sheree laughed and assured her that she wasn't dying, but Tully couldn't laugh along with her, as much as she saw it pained Sheree that she hadn't, and Sheree confided in her that she had not been able to offer up a description of her attacker, much less an identification, if it was to come to that, but that the police were pursuing several leads, though her uncle had said very little to her on the matter, though she'd insisted that she be informed of as much as was legally allowable.

Tully held her hand tighter, and, whisper-quiet, asked the one question she knew Sheree did not want, under any circumstance, to have to be asked, or to have to answer. "Were you raped?"

Sheree made a hitching sound in the back of her throat, and nodded slightly. For a moment, Tully thought she would cry, but Sheree didn't cry, and instead confided in Tully that she'd absolutely no clue as to what she would tell Gable, the boy from the kiosk at the pool, and, to Sheree's shock and horror, Tully cried. "It's not as though I'm dying," she attempted to soothe her friend, but in the end Catherine sent Timothy in to ask Tully to come out, that it was time that Sheree had some rest, and time that they were home and had dinner.

* * *

Tully wasn't interested in dinner, and picked at her food, but ate barely anything at all, save for a few pieces of carrot and a bean, though, regularly, she absolutely detested beans.

She couldn't sleep either, and lay awake in the dark thinking about how Margaret had chosen to remain at the hospital with Emily, and Jarod's decision that, rather than take Catherine up on the offer to stay over, he'd taken out a room in a motel with Kyle.

She would have been able to sleep, she thought, if Jarod had been here. In the house with her, not specifically in her room, she quickly corrected, as though her thoughts were not merely her own, and anyone at all could have been listening in, and she thought of Sheree, all alone in that hospital, and her attacker, at large, and doing who knew what, planning who knew what.

* * *

The next couple of days, she fared not better than the previous, unable to properly sleep, and with little to no appetite for food. She was anxious that Sheree's attacker be found and brought to justice, be locked away for good.

Her mood wasn't helped, when, feeling sick, she decided to wait the sick feeling out in the bathroom, only to have the bathroom door slammed in her face by Robert, who was obviously in a mood, though she couldn't fathom what cause _he_ could possibly have to be so, and she kicked the door and stormed off to her bedroom to work, or, rather, not work on her homework.

It was three o'clock and she was sitting in her bed in the dark and eating a bag of chips and not caring where the crumbs went, or if they annoyed her later, because it wasn't as though she could sleep anyway, when she heard the door to her room open and close again, though she pretended as though she hadn't noticed, and popped another chip in her mouth.

"You're not asleep," Robert noted.

Tully stifled a snort and leant over to switch on the bedside lamp, sitting on the nightstand beside her bed. That was much was obvious, she thought, and threw her brother a glare for sneaking into her room in the middle of the night, and _expecting_ her to be asleep! "What do you want?" she growled, popping another chip in her mouth and chewing it loudly. "If you've come here expecting to 'borrow' my homework, or to ask me to lend it to you to copy, then you'd best think again – and get the Hell out of my bedroom! Do you have any idea of the time?"

"I need to talk to you," Robert told her, standing at the end of her bed and staring at his feet, or the carpet.

"Go away and come back in the morning – or never!" Tully growled, shooting him a filthy look. "You expect me to believe you came in here to talk!" She laughed harshly, and covered her mouth with a hand, remembering the time. "I told you once before, and I'm telling you again – get help!"

Robert frowned and looked up from the floor and into her face.

Tully rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me," she told him sarcastically, "you murdered someone! Well I'm not covering up for you, that's for sure. All that alibi rubbish! You'll have to find it elsewhere, psycho!"

Robert made a face, and stepped around the end of the bed and came up beside the mattress where Tully was sitting, and Tully wanted to take hold of the lamp and smack him with it, but then she'd been left in the dark, and alone with him, mad that she'd smacked him with the lamp. "It's about Sheree," he said, not exactly serious, but not entirely conversationally either, and Tully forgot all about potato chips, and the dark. "I did it. I didn't mean to. I mean, I did – she was always so mean to me – but I didn't mean… I mean, I didn't think she'd tell, or I would have… stopped her." He bit his lip, staring at Tully with wide eyes, who'd backed away from him, into the headboard of her bed. "You saw her. You went to see her, to visit her in the hospital. Did she- Did she say anything about me?" he asked, and, though Tully didn't respond, he just kept talking. "I mean, I guessed by now that she mustn't have really remembered who it had been – who'd hurt her, I mean – or the police would have been around already, and stuff, you know, all that police procedural nonsense and legal rubbish, but what _does_ she remember, what did she tell them? The police, I mean. You were there, you talked to her. She's your friend."

He was staring at her again, and he'd obviously finished talking, and was now waiting for her to answer, but she wasn't going to answer any of his questions, and she stared at him for a long moment, just watching her, with his too wide eyes, waiting, and then she sprung away from the front of her bed, but it wasn't to get away, because she didn't jump up and leap off her bed and run for the door, instead she dived at Robert and managed to get him on the floor – it was the surprise, she knew – and she hit him, and punched him, and hit him and hit him, and didn't stop, until finally he managed to push her away, and keep her away from him for long enough to run away, and she just sat there, on the floor, and hit the floor, and hit it, and hit it, and wished she'd killed him, wished, minutes later, as she was crying, that she was standing in he door to her mother's bedroom, crying, and asking her mother to be her alibi because her brother was dead, she'd killed him.

* * *

She thought maybe that would be the end of it, when she finally managed to pick herself up off her bedroom carpet and walk to Catherine's room, and tell her what Robert had told her, she thought maybe her mom would ring the police and tell them what she'd told her, and that they would come and take Robert away, never to be heard of again. But that wasn't how it was at all, because Robert had gone out, and, as much as Tully hoped it was to kill himself, to commit suicide, she knew that it wasn't for that reason at all.

In the middle of the night, the morning, really, Catherine got them all in the car, and drove them straight to the hospital, where she knew Sheree would still be.

Later, Sheree would say that she'd not so much as woken, even with all of the shouting and screaming and running feet and crying, though Tully knew that Emily's room and Sheree's room weren't one the same ward, or even anywhere near each other.

When Security dragged him, kicking and screaming, out of Emily's room, the little girl was wide awake and staring, and no matter how much her mother implored her, or sobbed, she would not speak a word, not even to the police who came later, and Tully thought of her brother's words – "I'm not finished yet!" – and could only shiver, even though it wasn't a bit cold.


	5. Chapter 5

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

* * *

**

Sheree didn't abort the baby, as everyone thought she would, and Emily eventually left the hospital, and three years later, on her twenty-first birthday, Tully and Jarod were married, and soon after Timothy became a priest.

Kyle became a police officer, and then a detective, Jarod a doctor, and Tully a lawyer, and Emily went into reporting.

Mr. Charles never did return to his family, but neither did the Center return for them, and Robert was admitted to a mental facility, where he stayed, catatonic, for twenty-two years.

Sheree married Gable Heckels and became Mrs. Heckels, and named her daughter Tullulah, after Tully, and Tully returned the favour, naming her first daughter, who was born one year after her marriage to Jarod, Cherie, though all of her friends called her by Cheruby.

Ethan, of course, was sent off to college when the time came, and now worked for an agricultural company.

* * *

_2000_

He had no one else to pick him up, his family had made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with him, so Emily had decided that, why not, she would pick him up, and to Hell with it, maybe ask him some questions she'd been wanting to ask for a very long time.

And just in case, she'd brought her pepper spray, though she'd long ago learnt self-defence and taken up martial arts classes.

Standing in the parking lot in front of the building, Emily strode over and introduced herself when he walked out of the building and explained that she would be willing to drive him to wherever it was he was to go, presuming that he had some sort of order by law to declare what he was, wherever it was he was going to go.

To which he replied tiredly, "You look like your mother," and nothing else, the whole trip to the diner where they currently sat at a table in a booth, Emily with a mug of coffee, and Robert not even with a glass of water, staring out of the window and watching the vehicles outside come and go.

"I have some questions," Emily told him delicately, glancing at him, rather than at the vehicle he was currently watching out the window, filling up on fuel at the pump, as they were waiting for their meals to arrive.

"What are you," Robert said suddenly, still watching the window, "my psychiatrist? 'Today I would like us to talk about-' What, global warming?" He turned to face her suddenly. "Why do you need my permission to ask? No one's ever cared about whether I wanted to talk or not, whether they pretended they did or they didn't, so don't act like you care, like you're any different – you're just like them!"

Emily fought not to frown, wanting to look away from him, but realising that that would be rude, and an affirmation that he unsettled her, or even frightened her, and that wasn't something she wanted. "And you base this statement on what grounds, exactly? You don't know me, Robert, so don't start making judgments and critical evaluations about my personality before you've even looked at the person I might, or might not be! In fact, I think you're the one who's behaving just like those people, those psychiatrists, you mentioned earlier, not me."

Robert laughed, unintimidated. "What is it with you people? My name is Bobby. If you were any sort of reporter, you would know that!"

"How do you know I'm a reporter, Robert?" Emily asked.

Robert laughed again. "Are you kidding?"

Emily frowned. "I'm absolutely not kidding, or playing with you in any way!" she told him seriously. "I would like you to tell me, this instant, how you know that I am a reporter."

Robert grinned. "What do you think I am, illiterate? Blind? Stupid?" He laughed. "You should really be careful what you leave lying around on your backseat, Miss Charles!"

Emily set her jaw. "I see. Is that how it's going to be now, is it? I take it from your welcoming tone that you're going to answer all and each and every one of my questions with complete readiness and honesty!" she replied sarcastically.

Robert leant into the table to answer her. "I did it because you pissed me off! You didn't take the bait, when I was doing everything I could, I was trying my hardest, to be charming, and impress your stupid, little mother, and you didn't take the bait. Instead, you laughed in my face. I don't like people who piss me off, and I especially don't like prissy, little bitches who piss me off!"

Emily did not reply, except to glare.

Robert sat back on the seat, reasonably pleased. "I'm mad, Miss Charles," he told her, "mentally ill. I'm not responsible for my actions," and grinned.

Emily crossed her arms stiffly. "I'll be sure to make a note of that, Mr. Hamilton," she told him frostily, "and have it faxed to your psychiatrist directly."

Robert laughed. "You're very funny," he told her, in a more relaxed voice than she'd heard him employ in all the time they'd been talking, and smiled at the tabletop.

"Is that a good thing, then?" Emily asked, watching him carefully. "You tell me. Is it a good thing for me that you find me laughable, or a bad thing?"

"I'm tired," Robert told her, without looking up from the table. "I'm tired of all these questions. Sick and tired. No more questions, Miss Charles. Not anymore. Just keep your mouth closed, like before. Just like before."

Emily brought her fist down on the table, and was pleased to see Robert start. "I beg your pardon," she told him angrily, "but I am no longer a child, nor am I in the least way frightened by you or your manner, nor do I find your domineering behaviour and comments conducive or any sort of emotion but disgust! You are a pathetic excuse for an individual, Mr. Hamilton, and I am increasingly coming to see the error of my ways, which was to offer you any sort of assistance, or the chance to explain yourself and your actions, in any way at all whatsoever, and I do not think, as of this moment, that I shall be associating with you ever again!" She stood from the bench seat sharply, adjusting the strap of her handbag so that it sat properly on her shoulder once more, and straightened. "Good day, Mr. Hamilton," she replied, as a final word, and strode away.

Robert didn't say anything, and did not even look around to watch her go, as she had expected, and she felt, only somewhat, deflated and cheated.


	6. Chapter 6

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

* * *

**

"What questions?" Robert growled, irritated, and handed Emily the foam carton he'd been given when he'd asked to get Emily's lunch to take out, after he'd finished his own lunch, and it was obvious that Emily wasn't going anywhere until she'd adequately made his life Hell, as he'd waited and waited, but she'd just sat in her car and not driven off, until finally he'd had enough, and asked to have her lunch packed up to take out, and had walked out to her car himself to give it to her.

Emily stared straight ahead, out of her windshield, and did not reply, so he pulled on the door handle to get the door to open, thinking, as he did, and the door opened, how ridiculous it was that Emily had not so much as pushed the button down to look the car door, and placed her lunch down on the front seat in the middle, beside where she sat, glaring at the windshield, but didn't get in the car, and stood by the open door instead.

"You're letting the heat in!" she scowled angrily, eventually, without tearing her gaze from the windshield, so he stepped back from the door and slammed it shut, at which she turned and glared at him, and he watched her without comment.

After a while, she unfolded her arms and got out of the car, slamming her own car door, and stomped across to the hood and glared at him from there. "What if I was to say that I wasn't entirely convinced that you'd been one hundred percent honest with me?" she scowled.

He laughed, and shook his head. "You're not half asking much, don't you think, Miss Charles! There's not many folk who're a hundred percent honest these days! To be honest, I'm not rightly sure there ever were."

Emily pursed her lips. "Ninety, eighty-five percent then!" she growled, shaking her head.

"That's compromise, Miss Charles," Robert told her. "I'm not sure that's such a good thing for someone in your position to be bringing across a willingness for."

Emily narrowed her eyes at him. She'd left her sunglasses in the car, and her eyes were starting to hurt against the glare of the sun from the hood of the car, and the general brightness of the day, and the dust in the air. "I think you're lying to me, Mr. Hamilton," she told him matter-of-factly. "I hold no pretence, for a moment, to believe that you've been, in any way, honest with me. The only question now is, what are you lying about? Or, more pointedly, why, or for whom are you lying?"

Robert laughed. "You're letting your imagination run away with you, Miss Charles," he assured her. "Or perhaps that is the heatstroke? Or your lack of having eaten enough? Coffee isn't food, Miss Charles! Not even your imagination is so extravagant as to include it as such, I'm sure."

"So now you're my nutritionalist?" Emily proposed incredulously, and laughed.

"Is that anything like a dietician?" Robert asked.

Emily shook her head. "If I die of heatstroke out here, you'll be an accomplice to murder."

"I'm not asking you to stay out here," Robert told her. "I didn't even ask you to get out of your car, in all honesty."

"To suicide then," Emily said. "The law takes a dim view to both, I'm sure as you well know."

"I'll just say I don't know you," Robert replied. "It's not as though you'll be around to say otherwise."

Emily laughed. "I see that you're a wonderful person!" she told him.

He laughed, but the sound was suddenly humourless. "You already know that I'm not!" he growled, and turned and walked back toward the diner.

Emily stared after him and crossed her arms across her chest, though she wasn't cold, in fact, she was very hot, and itchy, and the dust was making her ever more itchy.

* * *

"And are you to tell me that you're not remotely interested in meeting your daughter, Bobby?" Emily asked, stopping beside the table he'd sat down at and rested his head on his arms.

"I'm tired," he told her. "Go away."

Emily slipped into a seat across from him. "Well, I'm tired too, Bobby," she told him. "I'm tired of your avoiding my questions, and I'm tired of your lies, and I'm tired of waiting for the truth."

Robert laughed, and sat up, lifting his head up off his arms and glaring at her. "What truth is that, Miss Charles? Whose truth, exactly, are you looking for? You want to deny so strongly that it could have been you, that you could have been a victim to such a thing, that you laugh in the face of all the evidence, and in the face of all my answers, and choose your own reality instead, a reality in which I am a liar, and you're not a victim, and only you're perfect – an unreal reality. My psychiatrist, Miss Charles, would say that was sick, and I would tend to agree."

Emily glared at him horribly. "I never said that I'm perfect!" she retorted, angry, but careful to maintain control over her voice.

"But nothing you say can ever be wrong, or doubtful, but everything I say can, and is!" Robert shook his head. "Sure, I believe you, Miss Charles. One hundred percent!"

He was taking what she was saying and twisting it around, Emily knew. It was what people like him did. "I never said that!" she shouted at him, though she knew this would only serve to make matters worse, but she was just so mad at him!

Robert smiled. "Then what did you say, hmm? What did you say, when you said everything I've told you is lies, and you know better than I do, except, really, you know nothing, or you wouldn't be asking me at all! Or is there some other reason you're asking all these questions? Is there some other reason you've set out on this ridiculous crusade? Face it, you don't know anything, Miss Charles!"

Emily laughed, too sick and tired of his attitude to feign otherwise. "When did I say that I knew everything, or even anything?" she asked.

"When you said that I was lying," Robert replied. "Do you even listen to yourself?"

Emily glared at him. "I don't know why I'm even talking to you!" she scowled.

Robert sighed. "Well good, because neither do I! Know why you're talking to me," he clarified.

Emily stood sharply. "I'm going now!" she informed him. "And I shan't be coming back! At all!"

Robert rolled his eyes. "Well, happy travels and all that rubbish!" he told her, and laughed.

With a scowl, Emily stalked away, and he watched, moments later, out the window, as her car sped away, and the dust that her tyres had thrown up into the air settled back to the ground.


	7. Chapter 7

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

* * *

**

_Two months later_

16-year-old Cajole turned to her identical twin, Raymonde, and grinned, showing her the quiz she'd been reading in the magazine, and the two girls giggled and turned to shoot glances at their year younger brother, G.J., named after their parents' fathers, George, for their father's father, and James, for their mother's father.

Cherie, who was in her last year of high school, and glad of it, and would soon be leaving for college, replaced the telephone receiver on its cradle and looked around at her siblings.

G.J. poked his tongue out at Cajole and Raymonde, who he was sure were laughing at him.

Cherie cleared her throat, and her three younger siblings turned to look at her. "It's _mom's_ birthday today, guys! You're supposed to be looking for something for mom, not yourselves!"

G.J. made a face. "I am looking for something for mom!" he protested. "It's those two who keep laughing at me who aren't!"

Cherie rolled her eyes. "How old are you, G.J.? Your sisters are not 'those two'. They both have names, and they are-"

"Cajole and Raymonde!" the twins interrupted to chime at the same time.

G.J. shot them a glare, eyes narrowed, and turned his back to them.

"I mean, come on, C," Cajole complained, "it's a newsagent – not Tiffany's!"

Cherie shook her head. "Fine!" she replied snappily. "If you want to walk to Tiffany's, then by all means, walk the hundred miles, or however far it is! And if you have that kind of money, then maybe you can even _buy_ something, whilst you're there!"

Cajole and Raymonde frowned at their older sister, and turned back to the magazine Cajole was holding.

G.J. sidled across the aisle and snuck up behind his sisters to see what they were reading.

"Um, excuse me!" Raymonde complained. "A little privacy, Tom!"

G.J. made a face. "What do you mean 'Tom'?"

The two twins giggled hysterically and exchanged glances, which only made them giggle harder.

"As in Peeping Tom!" Cajole explained, once she and her twin had calmed down, which sent them back into fits of giggles.

G.J. blinked rapidly.

Cajole punched him in the arm. "We're having you on, silly boy!" she explained.

"Did you see that girl who was looking at you in general assembly this morning?" Raymonde asked, almost exactly after her sister had finished speaking.

G.J. blushed. "No!" he said, annoyed, with badly feigned unflappability.

Cajole and Raymonde nodded at the same time and grinned. "We did!" they chimed together, as usual.

G.J. crossed his arms, annoyed. "What is she doing by that phone anyway?" he groused, glancing at Cherie darkly.

"Waiting for a call obviously!" Cajole pointed out the obvious.

"From who, the ambassador for Peru?" G.J. asked, and snorted.

Cajole and Raymonde shook their heads at the same time.

"Think about it!" G.J. stressed. "From who?"

The two twins looked at each other. "How should we know!" they chimed together.

G.J. shook his head and turned about and walked away, toward the end of the aisle.

"Her name is Christopher," Cajole and Raymonde called after him in cooing tones, but he ignored them.

He didn't know any girls called Christopher, and, beside, Christopher wasn't even a girl's name!

* * *

When he returned from the gift wrapping and card aisle, G.J. walked up to his sisters, who were now reading a different magazine, which, surprisingly, wasn't a magazine for twelve to fourteen year old teenage girls. "Boo!" he said, and both girls jumped, and turned identical dark looks on him. He shrugged.

"I don't care what you say, I think he's cute!" Cajole told her twin in a loud whisper.

"He is so not cute!" Raymonde replied, widening her eyes for emphasis effect.

"Who's cute, or not cute?" G.J. asked, looking from one twin to the other.

"Cajole thinks _Mr._ Putin is cute!" Raymonde told him loudly, grinning.

Cajole winced. "Oh, you absolute meanie!" she whispered, and shut the magazine and replaced it on the shelf.

G.J. laughed, and crossed his arms. "There is a slight age difference," he told Cajole, which had Raymonde snickering, "and he does, er, live in another country!"

"I didn't mean it like that!" Cajole protested, and turned and stalked away.

"Oops!" Raymonde said.

G.J. glanced at her.

"It'll pass," Raymonde assured him. "It's just a phase."

He shrugged.

The pair were startled by the sound of a telephone ringing, and then the ringing stopped, and they heard their older sister speak into the receiver. "Tullulah, is that you?" she asked quietly, and sighed heavily, as though she'd received the confirmation she'd been waiting for, and it was, indeed, Tullulah talking to her from the other end of the telephone line. "Where are you?" Cherie continued in a hushed voice, which struck G.J., for one, as odd.

It was the middle of the day, so why was Cherie whispering?

Then, from the aisle behind the magazine rack, they heard Cajole ask someone, "Who are you?" and walked to the end of the aisle and turned into the aisle where Cajole was standing with a man who was probably about the same age as their mom.

"Who am I?" the man asked, perhaps amused, but still somewhat confused. "My name is Bobby."

Cajole shook her head. "No, I mean, do we know each other?"

The man smiled. "No! No, I don't think so, sweetheart."

Cajole stared at him.

He gave her a little wave. "Bye, then."

Cajole continued staring at him.

"Caj!" G.J. called, striding over, and throwing his arm around his older sister's shoulder. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Cajole responded, dropping her eyes first to the floor, and then allowing them to sweep up to meet her brother's.

Raymonde hurried past the pair and up to the man who'd said his name was Bobby. "Stay away from my sister, mister!" she told him in what she clearly thought was a business-like tone, but which G.J. thought sounded more like an angry preschooler, trying to act not quite so angry, and more grown-up than she was.

"I will, thank you," the man replied, and nodded to Cajole and G.J. and turned and left the aisle.

"What a creep!" Raymonde exclaimed, relieved, when the man had gone, and turned back to face her two siblings, but, seeing her twin's troubled frown, she rushed forward. "Oh my God, Cajole, he didn't say anything mean to you, did he?" She lowered her voice. "Or touch you?"

G.J.'s eyes flashed. If anyone even dreamed of touching his sister in a way she didn't like, or wasn't completely comfortable with, he'd kill them himself – or he'd get Cherie to do it!

Cajole shook her head quickly. "I just asked if we knew each other… and he said 'no,'" she replied in a faint voice.

G.J. turned his sister to face him suddenly, face paling, and stared into her face critically, trying to find something, some sort of evidence there, that would point to her strange behaviour and the reason behind it.

"Hey!" Cherie's loud voice startled all three of them from the other end of the aisle. "What's this? I hope the pair of you aren't trying to bully Cajole into anything!"

Cajole shook her head quickly, all three having now turned to face their older sister. "No!" she said quickly, still in that faint tone of voice.

Cherie's expression softened, and then quickly became worried. "Are you okay, Cajole?" she asked.

Cajole nodded, but did not reply, which, but the looks of Cherie's face, did little to convince her of this fact.

"Okay, I'm starving," Cherie told them, dropping the subject, "let's have lunch!"

G.J. made a face, but decided not to complain. Perhaps Cherie was right, perhaps that was all it was, perhaps it was only that Cajole was feeling faint because she hadn't eaten enough for breakfast, or for dinner the night before. On the way out, he whispered to Cajole, "I don't think you're awful or fat, I think you're perfect. You're my sister, and you're beautiful, and, even if you weren't, you'd still be beautiful." He wanted to add, 'Don't take those magazines for serious, or those other girls, what would they know anyway?' but they were outside, and Raymonde was pulling on Cajole's arm, and, a moment later, they were walking side by side, arm in arm, as they always did, except G.J. could tell that Cajole's smile was not as bright as it had been that morning.

* * *

As they sat waiting at the table for Cherie to arrive with their lunch on the red plastic lunch tray, Cajole hummed her favourite song, Shirley Bassey's _If And When_, which she could hum on end when she was in the mood.

Raymonde turned to her siblings with narrowed eyes, "Omg! Cherie is making a play for the McDonald's boy! Omg!" She cringed. "So embarrassing!"

G.J. suppressed a laugh. What was embarrassing, in his opinion, was that Raymonde pronounced what was meant to be three separate letters, which stood for three separate words, as one word!

Cajole sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, and G.J. finished humming the end of the song for her.

Raymonde scrunched up her face, and handed Cajole a lilac scented purple tissue from the tiny handbag clinging from her shoulder.

* * *

"You know, C," Raymonde told Cherie, as she returned with their red lunch tray, "McDonald's isn't food. I hope you told that boy that."

Cherie smiled. "I did," she replied, placing the tray down in the middle of the table, "that I did."

Raymonde sat back in her chair and, grinning, air guitarred to the song playing over the radio.

Cherie glanced at her suspectly and grinned and looked away, toward Cajole, who managed a tiny smile, and wiped her nose on the tissue her twin had given her.

Cherie frowned at G.J., who was eating his Quarter Pounder as though he'd maybe not eaten all week.

"It's his birthday too," Cajole whispered, barely above a breath, eyes shining, and Raymonde glanced at her, enquiring, for a moment, and then rolled her eyes, and narrowed her eyes in G.J.'s direction.

Of course, Cajole knew that her mother's real birthday was in January, but that she had recently taken to celebrating it later, on the anniversary of her second birthday, which, as a girl, before her parents had divorced, she'd celebrated her birthday upon so as not to interfere with the New Year's celebrations, and not to clutter the month with too many festivities. So now her mother's birthday was celebrated in March, a few weeks after G.J.'s birthday.


	8. Chapter 8

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

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Due to the fact that, when they left McDonald's, G.J. had complained that he was still hungry, they were now sitting in KFC, G.J. eating once more, and Cherie talking to a friend of Tullulah's, named Makky, who worked there part time; Raymonde sipping a soda, and Cajole staring out the window.

They still had not bought their mother birthday presents, and Raymonde was beginning to worry that they'd left it too late, and that they'd run out of time before the party tonight.

"What do you guys think about gift cards?" G.J. asked, when he'd finished eating.

Raymonde sat up straighter in her chair. "I'm getting mom that too!" she chipped in, eyes brightening.

"Skatin'!" G.J. chimed.

"What does that even mean?" Raymonde asked him, with a disbelieving grin.

"You know, like, cool," G.J. replied.

Raymonde shook her head, and glanced at her twin. "Have you decided what you're going to get mom yet?" she asked.

"I suppose I'll just get her the same as what you guys are getting her," she said tiredly.

Raymonde frowned, and reached out a hand to feel her twin's forehead. "I don't know, Cajole," she said. "I mean, are you sure you're okay, because you're really scaring me!"

Cajole looked at her suddenly. "Yes! I'm okay," she responded quickly.

Raymonde eyed her suspiciously. "Well, if you're not, then you'll tell me, right?"

"Right."

"Ice, baby!" G.J. replied.

Raymonde snorted, and stuffed a hand over her mouth. "I think you should just stick to skatin'!" she told him.

* * *

Raymonde shrieked. "Grandma! Omg! What are you doing here?"

G.J. slipped down an inch in his chair, totally embarrassed that Raymonde had screamed _anything_ in the middle of a public place.

"I was outside," Catherine explained calmly, "and I saw you sitting in here, through the window, and I thought I'd come inside."

Raymonde bounced up and down on her heels and turned wildly and gestured to the table they were sitting at. "Come and sit at our table, grandma!" she enthused.

"Oh, I intended to all along," Catherine told her.

Raymonde grinned. "Sit next to me!"

Catherine glanced at G.J. with wide eyes, who rolled his eyes, and Catherine took a seat beside Raymonde. "And how are my other two favourite grandchildren?" she asked, glancing around the table.

"Embarrassed!" G.J. groused.

Raymonde punched the air.

Cajole wordlessly stood up and deposited the rest of her twin's soda in the trash, before returning to her seat and neatly smoothing her skirt over her legs and looking up to meet Catherine's gaze. "Raymonde is suffering from an acute sugar high, I'm afraid to say, though the rest of us, save for a mild case of embarrassment, are doing quite fine," she relayed. "We've decided, for instance, that we're all going to get mom gift cards for her birthday tonight, and that Cherie has a secret crush on a boy who works at McDonald's, at the counter, by the name of none of us know what, but which might as well be something of the order of Larry."

Raymonde stared at G.J. accusingly. "Where's my drink?" She turned and glanced at her twin. "Larry who?"

"Your drink is in the bin," Cajole reported. "You're acting out of sorts, and you're terribly embarrassing grandmother, and frankly, the lot of us as well, so I decided upon an executive decision, and I disposed of it. Do not go looking for it in the garbage, you will only further embarrass yourself, and us as well."

G.J. laughed out loud, but looked instantly apologetic when Raymonde rounded on him, though Cajole kept her expression firm, and Raymonde stomped away.

Catherine frowned slightly, and glanced between her two remaining grandchildren, her expression largely enquiring, and somewhat exasperated.

G.J. dropped the smile. "Er, so that was… harsh," he told Cajole awkwardly.

Cajole turned her head to gaze out the window once more.

G.J. shivered and glanced at Catherine. "It's a girl thing, you know," he told her. "PBS, or whatever."

Catherine nodded agreeably.

* * *

Cherie returned from her conversation with Makky with a surprised expression and a hug for her grandmother, and glanced suspiciously around the table.

"There was a row, I think," Catherine told her.

Cherie scrunched up her face and stomped her foot. "What is it with the three of you today?" she burst.

"I didn't do anything! It wasn't me!" G.J. protested.

Cherie pointed her finger at him sharply. "Can it! Where is Raymonde?" She glanced at Cajole.

"Outside, I imagine," Cajole told her, without looking away from the glass, her tone indifferent.

Cherie marched around the table and took hold of her younger sister's shoulders. "Where is your sister?" she asked loudly.

Cajole stared at her blankly, but did not reply.

"Cherie, I don't think she's feeling well," Catherine told her oldest granddaughter delicately.

Cherie dropped her hands from Cajole's shoulders, and looked up to meet Raymonde's cold glare, standing behind Catherine's chair.

G.J. frowned when he saw Raymonde, but remained quiet, and Raymonde stormed around the table and put her arms around her twin.

Cherie sighed heavily and walked off. "I'm going to wait in the car," she called back to her siblings, and stepped through the automatic glass doors and into the parking lot.

* * *

Ten minutes later, after a coffee, Catherine hugged them all, including an unresponsive Cajole, and left also.

G.J. led the way to the car, shooting Raymonde strange looks. The both of them were acting weird, but there was definitely something not right with Cajole!

* * *

On the way over to the hospital, they had to pull over on the side of the road so the Cajole could throw up, and Cherie was hesitant about phoning home. She didn't want to ruin her mom's birthday, though she knew that, in her parent's eyes, when she was with them, she was responsible for her younger sibling's welfare.

Once they reached the hospital, they were asked to take seats, just as Cherie had imagined they would be, and were allocated to the end of a long line of others who'd earlier been asked to do the same thing.

Cherie watched Raymonde trying to coax Cajole into talking. "Just tell me where it hurts," she told her twin gently, to no response, and Cherie was sure that she'd have to ring home and that the birthday would be ruined.

"You're flustering her!" G.J. told Raymonde. "Stop asking questions for a second and wait for her to say something."

Raymonde glared at him. "It has something to do with _that _man, I just know it!"

"What man?" Cherie asked suddenly, standing up and walking over and stopping in front of them.

Raymonde rolled her eyes and glared. "The man Cajole was talking to in the newsagent!" she gritted through clenched teeth.

"When?" Cherie demanded.

"When we were at the newsagent, dah!" Raymonde snapped.

"Don't you take that tone with me!" Cherie warned her. "And I didn't see any man!"

Raymonde snorted. "I wonder why that was!"

"Stop it!" G.J. interrupted loudly. "The man said his name was Bobby or something, right?" he said, glaring at Raymonde for her childishness.

She glared back at him. "Right!" she growled.

"Well, do you know anyone called Bobby?" G.J. asked Cherie.

Cherie stared at him, thinking hard. "No!" she said, after a moment, frustrated.

* * *

"Hello, children!"

Cherie, Raymonde and G.J. started, and Cherie spun about to stare at the owner of the voice. "Father Timothy!" she greeted.

"Your sister doesn't appear well," Father Timothy replied, glancing past Cherie at Cajole.

"We think she's sick," G.J. said.

Father Timothy frowned. "I would say so too. Yet, you are unsure?"

G.J. made a face. "But we brought her here, didn't we?" he argued. "She's gonna get better. They'll find out what's wrong with her, and she'll get better."

Father Timothy nodded. "She may indeed."

Cherie grabbed his arm roughly. "What do you mean 'may'?" she demanded angrily.

G.J. stared at his older sister, but said nothing.

Father Timothy sighed. "Cherie," he spoke frankly, "I don't think what's wrong with Cajole is something that medicine can do much for."

Cherie stared at him. "What are you talking about?" she half-screamed. "Are you saying that you know what's wrong with her? What are you saying? And if you give me any of that possessed by demons bullcrap, so help me, Jesus, I will slap you one!"

Father Timothy sighed again. "Cherie," he advised her, "I think you should call your parents now, don't you?"

Cherie glared at him. "You might be a friend of mom and dad," she told him, deadly serious, "but I don't like you."

"Fair enough," he agreed.

Cherie turned about and stalked away, toward the telephone, which was currently in use, and swore nondescriptly.

"Why don't you use my cell phone, hmm?" Father Timothy called after her calmly, and Cherie turned around and stalked back over and waited for him to produce his cell phone and snatched it off him, and then stalked away again, to make the call in private.

Father Timothy glanced at Cajole, his expression assessing.

In honesty, G.J. had never really taken to Father Timothy either, but what worried him, more than Father Timothy's sudden appearance, and the disagreement between he and Cherie, or what their parents might say when they arrived at the hospital, was Cajole's absolute silence throughout all of this. In fact, it terrified him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

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It had been their father, Jarod's idea to take them out of school for the day after general assembly that morning to buy presents for their mother's upcoming birthday that evening, and Cherie, the oldest and with her full Driver's License already, had been delegated to chauffeur for the day.

And everything had been going fine, possibly except for the lack of inspiration in the present-buying department, until Cajole had met that man in the newsagent.

G.J. frowned, and absently listened to Cherie complaining, annoyed, to Father Timothy that their parents weren't picking up at home, and wondered why Cajole had thought she'd known a man, who, as far as he had been concerned, had been a total stranger to himself and Raymonde.

Furthermore, the fact that Cajole and Raymonde were identical twins and did practically everything together made it very strange that if Cajole had, say, met the man before at a school working bee or something, that Raymonde had not also met him, or was not able to recall meeting him.

Apart from Cherie, Cajole and Raymonde had excellent memories, and G.J. supposed that his own memory wasn't that bad either.

What was even stranger, on top of this, was Cajole strange behaviour since she'd met the man, and G.J. wondered if the man had somehow poisoned his sister, or if maybe he was going mad just for thinking such a thing.

A few feet away, Cherie thrust Father Timothy's cell phone back at him with excessive force which would probably leave a bruise on his chest later, but she didn't care, and she didn't think anyone but Father Timothy would either, and glared when Father Timothy tucked the cell phone away in his black jacket and began to explain, in that voice, just as if they'd been speaking all day and had never really stopped, that Catherine had rang him earlier and explained that Cajole was unwell and had asked his assistance, just to make sure that, if on his break, if he could take a look in at the waiting room and see if they'd come in, as Cajole had been looking very unwell, and she'd felt bad leaving her, but she'd thought it was just because of some school thing, or a boy thing, as she was a young woman, but later on she'd started to worry again and had rung him.

As he was speaking, Cherie's eyes slowly widened in outrage, but she didn't interrupt in case she acted too soon and missed a vital piece of information that she might need later when her parents arrived, if she could get through to them later to inform them of Cajole's condition.

After she'd rung off, he added, he supposed that she might have rung their Grandmother Margaret, or even their parents, or she might still have waited to make any more calls until he'd rung her back with the news that he'd seen the four of them, or just Cajole, at the hospital. In any case, he said, he'd done what she'd asked, and when he'd seen them, he'd first rung their Grandmother Catherine and informed her, before approaching them.

"It is quite possible," he finished, still in that casual tone of voice which was really starting to make Cherie fume, "that she informed your parents of Cajole's condition the moment I rung off, and that they are already on their way over."

For a moment, Cherie's anger got in the way of her other thought processes, and it took a moment longer for her, when she started to wonder what Father Timothy was even doing at the hospital in the first place, to remember that he'd been appointed as part of the staff of hospital chaplains three days a week, then she just glared at him, and crossed her arms tightly, belatedly.

_In any case_, she thought angrily, _nobody sane calls it 'ringing off' these days! It's always 'hung up'!_ and stormed past him toward Cajole and her three younger siblings.

* * *

Their parents, Jarod and Tully, arrived a few moments later, and hurried across the waiting room together, Tully going to Father Timothy, to ask questions, and Jarod to Cajole to do the same thing.

Father Timothy told Tully everything he knew, but Cajole wasn't uttering a word, so it was up to Cherie to convey her out-of-sorts behaviour, and what she'd done and what she'd eaten to try to pinpoint a triggering factor or some contributing, compounding factor at least that had lead to her current state.

But when Tully and Father Timothy walked over, Tully decided that instead of waiting around for who knew how long until they could see a doctor, that it would be best if they just left and returned home. Jarod, after all, was a doctor.

For a moment, Jarod looked as though he wanted to argue – two opinions were surely better than one – but then he gave in, and they all walked to the parking lot, Cherie and G.J. electing to take Cherie's car, and Raymonde and Cajole going with their parents.

At the car, Tully hugged Father Timothy goodbye, and Cherie shot him a glare that he wasn't likely to have noticed out of the front of her windshield, but which G.J. was hard-pressed not to notice, as, seconds later, she tore out of the parking lot after their parents' car with the same excess of fervour she had used when returning Father Timothy's cell phone to him, and G.J. recalled the countless times she'd complained of not being allowed to have her own cell phone though she was eighteen years old 'for Christ's sake'!


	10. Chapter 10

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

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At home, Cajole seemed to recover from her noncommittal silence enough to respond that she'd been upset with the grade she'd gotten on an assignment yesterday, and then, today, the principal's address of the whole school that he felt a current trend among the pupils that they were underselling themselves and potentially adversely affecting their futures by not doing their bests when he knew that they could do much better, and reminding them that the school counsellor was employed for that very reason, if any of them should feel the need to talk to someone who wasn't biased and in a completely confidential frame, and was not being paid to do nothing or to make the school look progressive or caring, and added that she hoped she'd hadn't ruined everything because she the last thing she'd wanted was to ruin their mom's birthday, but she'd just been upset and unthinking.

Neither Cherie, Raymonde or G.J. interrupted her explanation, nor mentioned anything about the man in the newsagent, though G.J. thought that Cherie came very close to doing so, but then she'd just let it drop, seeing the look in Cajole's eyes and on her face when she'd stared, pained, at their mother to discern whether she'd been the ruin of her birthday or not.

After that, Tully went upstairs with Cajole who's been advised to take some rest in her bedroom, and Jarod took the three others out to buy gift cards for their mother, and when they returned, they all got dressed in formal wear and trudged back out to the car and Tully drove them to an expensive restaurant where they would have her birthday dinner, and Cajole seemed to brighten as Ethan joined them at the reserved table, and then Catherine, Emily and Kyle, though Margaret could not make it, and Father Timothy got held up at the hospital and was late, and then had red wine spilled on him by Cherie – a complete and total accident, G.J. would swear if he was asked – as she'd been laughing too hard at one of G.J.'s jokes to notice that the hand that was holding her wine had started to tip to one side, and then spill out of the wineglass.

Sheree and Gable were even later than Father Timothy, and Tullulah had decided that her godmother's birthday had very little to do with her and was a no-show.

Later in the evening, they bumped into an old school friend of Tully and Sheree's named Twyla, who they'd once been very good friends with, though they'd drifted apart, and the evening was dominated by Tully talking with her friends, and Jarod talking with Father Timothy, Gable, Twyla's boyfriend, and Ethan and Kyle, and Emily interrupting whenever she felt like it, obviously not feeling really at place in the women's conversation, or just wanting to talk to her brothers for a while.

* * *

When Cherie had had a bit too much wine, and had to be taken to the bathroom by Cajole, Raymonde and Emily to throw up, G.J. got up to ask Gable if Tullulah was alright, and received a skirty affirmative that everything was fine, but which G.J. suspected meant exactly the opposite, but didn't broach the subject again, and later joined his father and the other men in a game of pool, which Cherie decided she wanted in on, and Emily tagged along to keep an eye out on Cherie, who'd been throwing up not long ago – though the other adults didn't know this, and certainly not Tully or Jarod – and Cajole and Raymonde stayed at the table to listen to the women's conversation, and Cajole, tired, rested her head on her arms, before standing up and informing the group at the table that she was taking a walk, and that she needed some fresh air.

Raymonde stood hurriedly to follow her, but Cajole glanced at her quickly and grimaced, and Raymonde understood that she didn't really feel up to the company, not even from her own twin, and, dropping her shoulders, returned to her place at the table, feeling extremely lame and brainwashed and unworthy for not having pushed the matter.

* * *

Cajole wandered, a little aimlessly, in the general direction of the outdoor dining, before changing her mind and heading for the exit at the front of the building and deciding to take a walk on the pavement in front of the restaurant, or maybe sit down outside at the bus stop not far away, just to clear her head, and get away from the smokers outside in the outdoor area reserved for dining where smoking was permitted.

Outside, in the cool air, she felt somehow hotter than inside, or maybe it was just because she felt the contrast more strongly, but she soon started to feel cool in her thin beige evening dress, sheer stockings, and flimsy, cream-coloured high-heeled sandals.

Out on the pavement and out of the brightness of the glow of the restaurant's lights, too preoccupied with her thoughts, she nearly crashed into someone, and wondered frantically if she should apologise or run, when she realised that she recognised the man from earlier that day at the newsagent.

"I'm sorry, Cajole," he said, straight off, "I guess I wasn't thinking right."

Cajole had the sudden and inexorable urge to run, but she figured her high-heeled sandals would be a disadvantage if the man did take chase, and opened her mouth to speak instead, even though she felt her throat shutting down fast. "How do you know my name?" she managed, voice constricted, before her throat closed too much for her to be able to speak any longer.

The man frowned and tried to smile, but it obviously wasn't really working, because he gave up a moment later. "Cajole," he began, "you have-"

Cajole slipped her strapless high-heeled sandals off her feet and turned quickly and fled, but the man was quicker, and had already taken her arm and spun her back around to face him before she could get much farther than five paces, and she could hear her heart pounding in her ears, and feel it and her throat and her chest.

"You shouldn't leave your shoes," the man told her, as though he were a teacher instructing her of something, and let his hand fall from her arm.

Cajole reached her other hand up to touch her arm where he'd grabbed her, but it didn't hurt, and he hadn't really been holding it that hard, so she presumed that she probably wouldn't have a bruise later on, and glared at the man, who was peering into her face with a frown, as though expecting her to try to run again, or maybe try to slap him, and trying to read her thoughts.

"Your name is Cajole, and your sister's name is Raymonde," he said. "You're twins. I have a twin too."

Cajole continued to glare at him without comment, but when he didn't speak further she shot him a frosty, "So?"

"You have an anomaly which makes you different to a lot of other people," he told her, careful to keep eye contact, and shook his head. "Not weird-different, just different."

Cajole made a face. "What, like a blood anomaly?" she asked sarcastically.

"A gene anomaly."

She laughed. "I think you're mad!" she told him, sarcastically amused.

The man smiled, and said, "But you're not, Cajole. The anomaly that you have, it manifests or exhibits itself in different forms, and one of those forms is that you are perceptive to, or able to receive messages from…" He dropped his face into his hands for a moment, finally breaking their eye contact, and giving Cajole a chance, perhaps with only a split second advantage to flee, though, waiting for him to continue his explanation, she completely forgot that he was probably a very dangerous individual who might even have been following her, and for some time, to have bumped into her by accident tonight on a darkened part of a mostly well-lit street, and before at the newsagent. "The background…" he said through his hands, as though trying to figure something out himself.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cajole told him matter-of-factly, eyes narrowed in scepticism and annoyance. "I can't understand anything you're saying."

The man looked up from his hands suddenly, letting his hands drop back to his sides, and made a face. "You're a telepath, Cajole," he told her, annoyed – at her, or at himself, Cajole could not tell, but she did not like his tone of voice, nor the off-kilter things he was saying about her.

He didn't know her, or anything about her, and, as far as she was concerned, that was the way it would stay! Without a word, she turned on her heel, sandals forgotten, and strode away from the man in her most confident, unhurried but not dragging her feet stride.

The man ran to catch her up, but he didn't try to take her arm again. "There's a background energy that surrounds us all the time, Cajole. And it can connect us too. That's what-"

But by then Cajole had reached the door to the restaurant, and the door had swung shut behind her, and she felt soft carpet beneath her feet, sore from the concrete, and realised that she'd left her sandals behind – somewhere in the dark – but there was no way she was going back out there to get them, with that crazy man still out there.


	11. Chapter 11

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

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When Raymonde asked, she said she must have left her sandals outside in the outdoor dining area, though she knew Raymonde had seen her come in through the front door and not the back, but, then, when her mother asked, she replied the same lie, and Raymonde stood up to go 'back' out to the outdoor dining area to look for her shoes with her, though they both knew they would not be there.

Outside, the air smelt strongly of cigarette smoke and the night air was filled with the sounds of the television set broadcasting a game. Cajole, waving aside the smell of the smoke, walked to the end of the dining area, which was actually quite large, Raymonde trailing behind her, and then returned back to the door to inside, and stopped to wipe her feet on the concrete outside the door before stepping back inside, and making her way toward the women's bathroom to sit on the toilet for a long time and not have to explain anything to anyone, not even her twin, who'd been lagging a little too far behind, and she'd allowed the door to close in front of.

She darted across the room toward the bathroom, where she knew her twin would look sooner or later, but supposed she wouldn't try to squeeze under the cubicle door in her evening dress if she locked the door, so, at least for a little while, she'd be safe.

She had no pressing need to relay the conversation of earlier to her twin, which was strange in itself, she supposed, and felt a pinge of concern, but then, it hadn't been Raymonde the man had been accusing of being mad, it had been her!

* * *

Hurrying into the bathroom, Cajole quietly shut the door after her, and looked around for an empty cubicle and to see if she was alone in the bathroom or if there was someone who would recognise her and start asking questions, and froze.

A few moments later, or longer, she heard the door push open behind her, and nudge against her back, urging her forward slightly, but she didn't want to go forward, and then, she thought, whoever had been trying to open the door had left, or had simply slipped through the small space that had been available, and her heart leapt to her throat and her face flamed suddenly and she spun about, to gag or place her hands over the intruder's eyes. She didn't want anyone else to see, or to blab!

She almost screamed when she nearly knocked her head into her twins, and took a sharp half-step backward, but then remembered the sight that awaited at her back, and tried to move forward to quickly shield her twin's eyes, but realised, as Raymonde's eyes went wide, that she'd already seen what was happening in front of her.

At that moment, Cajole realised that she probably should have been shouting or something, at least doing something to make them stop, but she was too embarrassed and scared to do anything, let alone run away, and what if someone else were to walk in and see what she and Raymonde had seen? What if their mom, or Aunt Emily were to walk in and see what was happening?

Raymonde silently reached out a hand, which Cajole took, and pulled her toward her, and put her arms around her, pressing her mouth to her ear, but then no words came, and Raymonde leant away from her and let out a restrained sigh, then she whispered, "Asshole!"

Cajole made a face, pained and frightened, and held tight to her twin. "Can we just go?" she whined in a breath, and felt, finally, as her twin nodded, and reached out for the doorknob to open the door, and then the two of them slipped out into the other room, and Cajole could breath again.

* * *

Raymonde, of course, took her arms from around her and twirled about and marched off toward the table they'd taken earlier in the evening, and Cajole suddenly found herself the one tagging and lagging, unable, as hard as she tried, to pick up her feet and walk any faster, to reach the table before her twin, and in time to stop her telling their mother what they'd seen in the women's bathroom.

"Can we talk?" Raymonde asked brusquely, stopping short of the table behind their mother, Tully's chair.

Tully looked around and frowned, and Sheree and Twyla went on talking.

"It's important!" Raymonde stressed, and Cajole leapt forward and started to run at her twin and threw her hands over her mouth from behind, which caused their mother's eyes to widen, and Cajole to take her hands from her twin's mouth, realising that their mom was _definitely_ taking notice now, and probably thinking that what Raymonde had to tell her was about her.

Tully stood up from her chair and shot Sheree a look – family business – and Sheree winked understandingly, and Tully walked away from the table, Cajole and Raymonde following her. When they were out of earshot, she turned back to her twin daughters and set her questioning gaze on Raymonde.

Raymonde's chest deflated a little bit, and she said lamely, "Cherie's kissing someone in the bathroom."

Tully turned, without a word, and headed toward the bathroom, and Cajole and Raymonde linked hands guiltily and, after a moment, shuffled after their mother.


	12. Chapter 12

**Taken **by planet p

**Disclaimer **I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**

* * *

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Tully declared, that that officially was the end of their association with Father Timothy, and they parted ways after that, and they left the restaurant and drove home, and Cajole and Raymonde could hear their mother downstairs, suddenly yelling and dropping her voice, and raising it again, into all hours of the morning.

In the morning, however, nothing was said, but Cherie stayed in her bedroom and didn't join them for breakfast or to drive them to school or to go there herself, and instead their father drove them over, on his way to work, though they all had a feeling that he wasn't going to work, but back home instead, though they didn't share this feeling amongst themselves, or turn back to watch their father's car turn back for home, or continue on to his workplace.

* * *

When Tully went into Cherie's bedroom to talk to her, Cherie said her from underneath her blanket, "I felt sick. He was helping me feel better."

Tully, arms wrapped around herself, laughed harshly, and glared at her 18-year-old daughter hiding under her blanket. "He was taking advantage of you!" she shouted at the lump underneath the blanket. "You were drunk!"

The lump shifted abruptly, and the blanket was thrown back and off her daughter, and Cherie ran for the door, and disappeared out into the hallway.

* * *

Returning from school in the car with their father, Cajole, Raymonde and G.J. were informed that Cherie had moved out, and asked not to ask their mother questions about it.

All three siblings went upstairs to their rooms, G.J. to his own room, and the twins to their shared bedroom, and, ten minutes later, G.J. appeared in his older sisters' room, asking to know what exactly had happened last night, and then deciding that they should confront Father Timothy about it – and tell him to stay away from their sister!

Which the twins agreed on, and the three of them snuck out of the house via a downstairs window.

* * *

They took the bus to the hospital, but it wasn't one of Father Timothy's days, so they took the bus again, this time to the church, and spotted Father Timothy's car in the parking lot, which meant that he had to be around somewhere.

They'd just walked up the path to the church entrance, when someone leapt out from the side of the building at them, and all three jumped back, G.J. swiftly putting himself in front of his sisters in case the person was dangerous.

A low laugh, much more like a growl or a cough than a laugh, rolled in the back of Tullulah's throat, and tumbled out.

G.J., Cajole and Raymonde stared at her, eyes wide, but they did not relax. Tullulah looked as though she'd been on drugs all night, and for some time before that, and she kept swinging her right arm limply at her side, and she'd attached some horrible claw-like black stick-on nails to her fingernails on both hands, and her teeth had a strange, menacing gleam about them – and a few of the points were too sharp, as though she'd filed them that way!

"Hi, Tullulah," G.J. said, his tone testing, and Tullulah swung her right hand up, causing all three to flinch, and back away, and rested it on G.J.'s shoulder, tightening her fingers around his shoulder.

G.J.'s eyes widened and he kept his eyes fixed with her own, which were oddly watered-down in the bright light, except for her pupils, which were tiny pinpoints.

Cajole gripped her brother's arm tightly, her arm fully extended, and her body as far away from Tullulah as possible, her own arm losing circulation due to Raymonde's efforts clinging to it.

Tullulah roared with laughter, and uncurled her fingers from G.J.'s shoulder and patted his arm forcefully. "You're the funny one, 'ey? Isn't that right, D.J.? Am I right? You're the funny one?"

G.J. nodded jarringly, unable to make himself speak, and Tullulah patted his arm again. It wasn't just Tullulah's laugh that had gotten deeper, it was her voice as well.

"G.J.," Cajole's wobbly voice came from behind her younger brother. "His name is G.J.."

Tullulah's eyes shifted swiftly from G.J.'s face to Cajole's scared, pale one.

* * *

"Tullulah."

Tullulah snarled and swung about at the sound of Father Timothy's voice, and eyed him standing ahead of her in the doorway to the church.

"I can help you," he told her levelly.

Tullulah growled in the back of her throat, the sound raising goose bumps on the back of Cajole's neck.

G.J. stepped slowly back to be closer to his sisters, and Raymonde took hold of his other arm and Cajole better wrapped her hand around the arm she was already holding, but none of them ran. This was who they'd come here to see.

Tullulah smiled slowly, and the teeth without points began to form sharp points of their own, and her eyes glimmered, suddenly bright, and turned away from the glare of the sun, and she sprung forward.

"Tullulah, no!"

Father Timothy stumbled backward and grabbed a hold of the doorway to steady himself, but too late to prevent his fall, and the three teenagers standing on the path in front of the church stared at Tullulah making a bloody meal of someone's throat on the lawn, and Cajole thought suddenly that she recognised the voice, and felt suddenly faint, but could not unglue her fingers from her brother's arm to faint, or will her mouth to even open to speak.

"Tullulah," Father Timothy breathed, kneeling in the doorway with staring eyes.

For a long moment, Tullulah acted as though she hadn't heard him, intent on her pickings, then, suddenly, reeled backward, away from the body and the blood, though she was covered in it – on her face, on her hands, on her front, on the tops of her legs and her knees, even in her hair – and then she retched all of the blood and gore, and the skin and meat up beside the body on the green grass, and choked and sobbed and retched.

Cajole felt her fingers – sweating and shaking – loosen their hold on her brother's arm, and she slipped out of Raymonde's grasp, and moved quickly off the path toward the body.

"Cajole!" Raymonde squawked in a terrified rasp, but Raymonde stayed where she was and didn't move, and G.J. seemed incapable of movement or reaction.

Cajole moved past Tullulah, whose fingernails were no longer curved talons, but red with blood, like her hands, and fell down on her knees on the grass beside the man, whose eyes were staring, too wide, at nothing, or perhaps at the endless, eternal sky above him.

"Bobby?" she whispered, as Tullulah continued to make intermittent sobbing, hitching noises and gargled, keening noises, and began to rock back and forth.

The eyes remained staring.

Cajole ignored the blood pooling around her knees, making them warm and wet against the cold, blade-like grass. She concentrated as hard as she could with her mind, so that her head hurt, and the red of the blood stared at her the way the man's eyes stared at nothing. _Bobby? Please don't go!_

The eyes continued staring, but she felt something touch one of her knees, something more solid than the blood, and she felt a jolt of fear run through her, and hesitantly took her eyes from the man's eyes and dropped her gaze to her knee and stared at the hand just touching her knee with the tips of its fingers.

She moved her arm and wrapped her hand tightly around his. "It's okay," she told him, struggling to think the words in her mind at the same time. "The monster's gone now."

A sudden movement to her side had her turn her head, and she saw Father Timothy put his arms around Tullulah and attempt to help her to stand.

"Call Dad!" she told her brother and her twin urgently. "Just do it!"

* * *

_TBC?_


End file.
